That maximizing autonomy and coordinating behavior (emphasis mine) is central to good governance

That explicit, linear, and reproducible meeting structures and language is preferred

The system provides space for everyone to have and use power

The problem with each of these assumptions:

Good luck with “coordinating behavior”, especially if you are not willing to walk the talk yourself.

Those structures and that language usually wind up becoming another set of acronyms and code-words that few people understand.

The same people who tend to go after power will be the same people who have power in this structure. There is nothing inherently in the structure (or in any structure) that equalizes how people experience power in its various forms.

My assumption is that an organization is a networked group of individuals and that culture derives from the interactions between these individuals and how the environment influences individual behavior.

The only thing we should attempt to influence is the environment the individuals work within – much like fertilizing and mulching a garden so that your plants can thrive.

What are you working with now?

What are the characteristics of the people who “hold power” in the organization?

How is your organization currently treating people who act autonomously? Is it encouraged? Discouraged? Is it encouraged verbally and discouraged behaviorally?

What is your percentage of aggressive go-getters vs quieter thinkers and how are each of these groups treated?

What environmental changes can you make to make your organization more inclusive? Are there policies that need changing? Do different people need to be in leadership positions? Do the working environments accommodate different working needs?

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Saturday, February 17, 2018

It’s been awhile since I have studied Ancient Greek philosophy. When I was studying it, as part of my graduate studies in History, we didn’t spend much time on the Stoics. Much of my time was spent with Asclepius, Hippocrates, Galen, and the other characters in Ancient Greek medicine.

The Art of Living is an interpretation of a translation of transcribed discourses from Epictetus.

The book is easy to read and easy to pick up and put down. Strict translations from the original Ancient Greek text tend towards painful reading.

You can see the gist of some key ideas that have carried over into modern day thinking.

Control what you can, accept what you can’t. (Serenity prayer, anyone?)

You are responsible for your thoughts.

Don’t adopt other people’s views as your own.

Clearly define the person you want to be.

You can choose how you respond.

Harmonize your actions with the way life is. Don’t try to make your own rules.

Appreciate what you have.

Happiness is within.

Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.

From this interpretation, I can see why Stoicism and Epictetus are going through a resurgence in popularity among the entrepreneurial set. Many of the messages have been passed down through the business/sales arm of the self-help community for generations.

The academic in me is “this close” to grabbing and reading a more literal translation of Epictetus’ discourses. The inner academic would like to see how muddied the message is in today’s translations of Stoic philosophy. Then there is the (larger) part of me that knows it has much better things to do than slog through literal English translations of Ancient Greek.

This translation/interpretation of Epictetus strikes me as a decent start. If nothing else, I’d put this in the category of “distraction book” – something you can pick up and put down easily in short stints, close the cover, and feel just a bit better for having spent time with it.

Saturday, February 10, 2018

It’s a luxury to sit and consume a book in one sitting. Having the time to do that is half of it. Finding a book you can’t put down is the other.

Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford use storytelling to share a way to think about DevOps and IT as a key business driver.

They have obviously spent time in the trenches. The stories ring true, the characters seem to be modeled after people they have encountered, and I get the sense that some of the situations are thin disguises for real-life episodes. Admittedly, they also try to cram those characters into typical IT and corporate stereotypes (the guru/mentor, the politician, the “CEO,” the savior engineer, etc). They also follow the hero’s journey as the framework, so you pretty much knew how things were going to end.

Thankfully, I was not reading this as a novel or expecting much of a plot.

I could have easily read the back of the book and get what I needed out of it.

Reading the whole book, however, helped to provide context to the ideas in the back of the book.

I also found myself going on the learning journey with Bill, the main character, as he tried to parse what Erik, the guru/mentor, told him.

It’s impressive when a book gets my attention enough to make me engage like that.

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Thursday, February 08, 2018

That resistance strengthens the less certain they are about whether that goal (or even getting things headed in the right direction) is achievable.

I’m thinking there could be an in-between step.

Over ten years ago, I found myself carrying about 25 pounds more than I usually do. The weight snuck up on me, of course. A few incidents set off some alarms that maybe I ought to do something about it.

I was wearing my mother’s hand-me-downs. She had just lost a bunch of weight. Her hand-me-downs were larger than anything I had worn – ever. And some of them were too tight.

A professional colleague made the harmless comment that I looked “old.” I work in IT, so tact isn’t a strong suit for most people in the field.

Clothes I’ve worn for years didn’t fit. Too tight.

I was feeling tired, bloated, slow and fat.

Yes, I knew I needed to set SMART goals, but I’ve never needed to diet or lose weight before.

Furthermore, I wasn’t entirely sure what caused the weight gain to begin with. I didn’t think I was doing anything differently.

I figured that a good approach, for me, was to see if I could change the momentum.

I didn’t set a target to fail at, then go through the whole shame-spiral thing when I missed.

It was more of an “if I do this, will the trend move in the right direction?”

In my case, I decided to start exercising. I tracked how often I did it and what I did.

After a month, I had enough data to start setting SMART goals.

What was that data?

Yes, in my case – exercise helps me lose weight

I also found that exercise dampened my appetite and I naturally made better food choices

I could exercise 2-3 days per week without feeling the “shoulds”

During my exploratory measurements, I lost 5 pounds and started to fit into my old clothes again.

Awesome! NOW I can make a SMART goal because I have a good chance of achieving it and I have the data available to make it realistic.

If you find yourself resisting making a SMART goal, do some exploration.

Where are you at now?

Is there something you can try to change the trend?

What happened?

Did your experiment have the desired result?

If yes, at what pace?

If not, is there something else you can try? Or is there another variable at play?

With that data, you can then start setting specific, measurable, ACHIEVABLE, relevant and time-bound goals.

And you won’t get as stuck with the “achievable” part.

Let me help you set goals, prioritize, and plan.

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Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, Jim Huling and Jim Stuart at FranklinCovey spent years developing and implementing this model of execution.

Their 4 disciplines are straightforward:

Focus on the wildly important

Act on the lead measures

Keep a compelling scoreboard

Create a cadence of accountability

Straightforward, but not easy.

And, as with any sound change practice, the disciplines require steady, consistent effort to implement successfully.

They recognize the enemy of successful execution is the “Whirlwind”, i.e. your day job and the urgencies that appear necessary to sustain your business. If you can’t focus on the wildly important, the other three disciplines won’t help you.

As they put it numerous times in the book:

The most important contribution a senior leader can make is to remain focused on the wildly important goal and resist the allure of your next great idea. (emphasis mine)

They recognized that the people who tend to rise to leadership positions are also the type of people who are creative and ambitious. The type of people who are hard-wired to take on too much and, because they are in a leadership position, have their staff take on too much.

They also recognized that leaders like to hedge their bets and position themselves, and their team, such that people can’t question the level of effort. Busy looks good.

Nothing is more counter-intuitive for a leader than saying no to a good idea, and nothing is a bigger destroyer of focus than always saying yes.

How many of these 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) implementations failed because their clients couldn’t find the discipline of focus?

————-

They kept avoiding the “whirlwind.” Throughout the book, I hoped they would ask, “Is what you are doing in the whirlwind truly necessary?”

They stated that a focus on wildly important goals might help narrow the size and complexity of the whirlwind. It was obvious, however, that they were keeping day-to-day operations out of scope.

They never asked about what was happening in the whirlwind.

Why did they keep skirting around the thing that was likely to derail their model?

I’m going to talk more about this book in the next couple of posts and try to unpack that.